EVENT: Murder Mystery Dinner Party

We've got the four players of this event:

Steel,
Prism,
Shadowstrike,
and Joker

And you all know the rules. Stay in character, don't use OOC tags, and do not reveal your cue cards. There will be one extra point awarded at the end of the thread for best overall roleplaying, and one point to each player who behaves in a fair and sportsmanlike manner.

This event will end when: an arrest is made and the suspect is escorted out of the building; another person is murdered; or if the thread dies or otherwise cannot continue.


_____



It is currently 1 PM. The Gaurdsmen arrived shortly before 1, locked down the scene. The detective arrived, and entered the scene. Shortly after twelve, the host of the dinner party had been found dead, in the closet, apparently stabbed. Nobody had left the house, the Gaurds had been sure of it.

The house was a two story building gilded affair, fine china and cabinets and plush furniture. A table had been set out for an early supper, but its food was untouched. The silver had been set out to eat.

There were three guests, and a butler in the house.

The detective made the fifth person.

The Diamond Dog Butler helped the detective up the step into the room. He turned to the detective and back to the party, who were seated. "Might I introduce Falling Star, a detective with the city Gaurd who will attempt to resolve this dilemma."

Chocolate Eclair nodded to the detective and sniffles bringing a tissue to her face and blowing. She looked stricken with Grief.

Brawny Hooves was eating some of the food he had picked up before they got put into this sit down. There may have been someone killed but it was not going to stop him enjoying his food.

He was a little nerves with someone being killed but was sore he could help get to the bottom of this

Slither hisses quietly from on top of a rather ornate side-table. Made of polished maple, the dark brown wood is a stark contrast to the sky blue and silver snake coiled on top of it, his head laying upon three rows of muscular coils, the end of his tail twitching every now and then, hanging from the back edge of the furniture. His light red crest sticks up slightly, making his black horns very easy to see, curving straight back from his skull. He has a small doll's tophat perched rather comically on his head, a 'gift' from his work for the special occasion. He looks around with narrowed eyes, cold hatred blazing in them for all of the filthy animals surrounding him.

Falling Star entered the room with serious expression, appropriate to the grave situation, wearing a deerstalker that already destroyed that expression with a silly looking padded chinstrap. The light brown pegasus looked around the group, getting a first impression of the guests - and the butler - and wanted to say something, but when he opened his mouth to speak, he tripped on himself and demonstrated to everybody exactly why he wore his hat by nonchalantly introducing his protected chin to the floor in a ruther amusing manner, as far as anything was amusing when there was a murder to be solved.

The detective blinked a few times from his position on the floor until his eyes focused on a coin right in front of his snout. Only one bit, nothing noteworthy. He quickly picked it up and put it into his saddle bag before standing up and awkwardly grinning into the small crowd. "Uhm, yes, hello there, I'm Falling Star." He recollected himself and fell back to serious. "First things first: Please do not worry. I'm sure this is unnerving, but let me guarantee you that no crime is perfect, and with your cooperation I'll do my best to find out what has happened and who is responsible."

On first glance, none of the guests appeared particularly likely to have done it. The mare, Chocolate Eclair by name, as he had already been notified of by the guards, seemed appropriately distressed. Brawny Hooves wasn't nearly as bad off, but he as well looked nervous. Slither... Well, he did look as if he'd murder somepony, but there was one problem: The guards had said the victim had been stabbed, and the limbless creature that was Slither might have some trouble doing that. Last but not least, the butler had acted simply like a butler so far. For now, everything was still possible.

"The guards assured me that nobody has left the house, that makes it likely that the murderer is still here", Star began, closely eyeing the reactions of everybody present. "Now, please don't panic. Though this is helpful for my investigation, there is the possibility that he strikes again, so our first priority is avoiding exactly that. The safest thing to do is to stay in a group and to not leave the room unless necessary. If you absolutely need to go somewhere, a guard will accompany you. Two of them are right outside the door, so it's unlikely that the culprit can act annoticed. Do you have any questions so far? Otherwise I'd like to take a look at the victim now."

Miss Eclair shook her head weakly, not speaking. She dabbed her eye once more and stood up to follow the detective to see the victim.

The victim was a middle aged Earth pony who'd fallen on a lot of money when his pre-war investments panned out. He was a dapper distinguished shade of violet, and wore a smart dinner vest and bow. Surely he had anticipated an excellent night, having ordered all manner of catering to provide his guests with food.

It did not appear he would be enjoying supper.

Someone had propped his corpse up in the closet poorly, before having apparently stabbed him several times with weak, but effective thrusts into his neck and torso. His coat was soaked in blood, as was the carpeting in and around the dining room carpet.

The murder weapon wasn't anywhere to be found.

Map of Murder scene:



The party had been seated at the parlour.

Slither narrows his eyes distastefully at the rather clumsy lawpony. Why should he care if another weak pony was dead? Still, he unraveled himself from the dresser, dropping to the floor with a dull thump as he made his way out of the parlor, following the grim procession.

What a mess. Seeing all the blood upon entering the dining room, one of Star's questions was already answered. Time of death: Not long before body was found, this would have been noticed by anybody coming in. The pegasus instantly looked for drag traces in the blood to possibly find out where exactly the victim was killed, but regardless of what he found, he paid the body greater attention first.

With trained scrutiny he took note of every little detail: Possible size of the murder weapon, position of the stabs - especially if they're primarily on the pony's underside or also on his side and back - and how he was lying in the closet, plain on the foor or propped against the wall. Lastly, he checked for anything that obviously didn't belong to the victim, differently collored fur or similar things.

After taking in the situation, Star wrote the facts he knew some far and possible early conclusions into a notebook he pulled out of his saddle bag with a thoughtful expression. Once done with that, he looked back at the group. "Who found the victim?"

Brawny was not sure he wanted to go and look at the body and seeing a dead pony was the last thing he wanted to do so he opped to stay with a Guard outside of the room so he didn't need to watch or see anything.

He had what was left of his small plate of food that he had grab before being make to come into this room.

Slither scowled at the crying mare as he slithered past her. There was something about her that nagged at him, something that he had read at one time or another. However, all thought process stopped when he entered the glorious murder scene.

Blood. Splashes of it everywhere, all shiny and red and dark and red and wet and red. And boy was it red. He loved that color, it was the color of his rather attractive spine, the color of a farm animal's fleshly slit throat, the color of all of the anger he had inside. And it smelled great, like a freshly killed frog or rusting armor. And it felt great too, rolling around in it, feeling the leaking heat from the fresh kill warm his scales right up. Lying in mud was nearly as good as curling up in a carcass, heh heh.

He froze, opening his eyes and looking up at the assembled lesser beings, lying in a shallow pool of red liquid, covered from snout to tail with the deluge.